A Van Helsing Christmas Carol
by claudia flies
Summary: Anna Valerious has been dead for three years. But tonight she will take Gabriel Van Helsing on a journey. Linked loosely to 'Memory'.


I have never read the Dickens book, I've just seen the disneyfied version. Sorry if I spoil anyone's Christmas cannons. There are also some links to my _Van Helsing_ saga, so look out!

* * *

This story is dedicated to Ceiliuir, a fantastic author and lovely person, who has decided to leave the internet. I did not get the change to say goodbye so this is my way to pay homage to her amazing talent, to thank her for being my friend and to say goodbye. Ceiliuir your awesome tales will be missed!

* * *

A Van Helsing Christmas Carol

_Rome, Christmas 1891_

Her heels hit staccato on the cold stone floor of the Vatican. It is strange for Anna to hear such physical sounds again, to feel the fabric and its seams pressing against her skin, to be corporeal again. But still she does not need to think where she is going; part of her has been within these rooms, with him. And that innate knowledge has been parted to her in his memories. What is never told is that no one is truly gone until the people they impacted upon finally let you go from their thoughts. For some reason Gabriel Van Helsing has refused to let her go, and in his thoughts she keeps being pulled back to earth. In a way that has made her more joyful than finding her family again; more happy than ridding the world of Dracula ever could. It has given her a way out of the incorporeal world of the dead and given her mind a physical outlet.

And now on the 24th of December, with the magic of gods of all names and cultures filling the earth she can cross over; can come into the world of the living. It is this one night that is so saturated with power and belief that all barriers constructed by humans and by Gods fall down. She just has to know where to walk, and the whole existence of the world will open up.

The long hallway ends in an inconspicuous door, there is no lock, just a simple handle; and with the silence of the dead she opens it. She stands, leaning against the frame, for a while, listening the bells of the churches above ground and watches him sleep, face half-buried in his pillow and a fresh scar on his cheek healing with an unusual pace. Slowly she walks to him, fearing that her footfalls will awake him before she is ready. She kneels, peering into his shuttered face and calls out _Gabriel Gabriel_; at first in a way she has done for the past years, silently in her head, in a place where no sounds exist. But the words form in her mouth and she can finally hear her own voice out loud.

He jilts awake like a warrior, hand instantly reaching for his revolver. But then his eyes seem to recognise her and his hand falls back by his face. He smiles tiredly, like seeing her is nothing new.

"Am I never to be rid of your memory?"

The question is not really directed at her as his fingers reach for her, expecting them to travel through the image created by his mind. As his hand encounters real flesh of her cheek, a shudder runs through his arm and chest. It takes him a second to react, to jump out from between the covers, revolver in hand. It still hurts, to see him pointing a gun at her, but she had expected nothing else.

"Who are you?"

He demands with the voice of a man used to the living dead; used to dismantling them with dispassion. But Anna just smiles, she has nothing to fear from him tonight.

"The ghost of Christmas present, but I think it would be easier if you called me Anna."

* * *

With his heart hammering his throat Gabriel Van Helsing watches Anna Valerious gracefully rise to her feet. He has seen her so many times since her death that this meeting does not seem as strange as it should.

"You should get dressed; we have much yet to do tonight."

She indicates the slightly open door with her head, her eyes never leaving his. However, she has never been solid before, has never been flesh. Mechanically he moves to the chest in the foot of his small bed, pulling out his clothes. He removes his sleeping pants and suddenly feels unusual bashfulness. No matter how many times he has had her in his waking dreams, this is real. She is leaning against the wall by the door, one foot resting against the stonework, as he turns to her, ready to ask her to leave. Instead she smiles in a way he has never seen before; mischievous and knowing.

"Oh no. I did not get to see this when I was alive, and you can be sure I'll enjoy it now that I'm dead."

Gabriel cannot help himself from grinning and pulling his pants off in front of her challenging gaze, she is after all; dead. But her eyes run over his legs and the smile on her face is everything but. Gabriel dresses swiftly, his eyes returning to the ghost-made-flesh by his door again and again, and his mind is fractured with the thoughts on an English idiot called Dickens, who might have been very right.

"He was, you know. Right."

As if she can read his mind; and Gabriel stiffens with a sweater half over his head. She moves behind him, her chest against his back and gently pulls the sweater down.

"Men are so unwilling to believe in the magic of Christmas that sometime they need to be shown."

"Is that why you are here? To show me something? Is the book true?"

She steps away from him, and immediately Gabriel misses her presence, misses the physicality of her, the reminder that she is not truly gone.

"Too many questions. We do not have time. You need to trust me to lead you tonight."

He pulls on his coat, and looks at her properly for the first time. The thick velvet of her dress seems to absorb the faint light of the oil lamps. He had chosen that dress from her scarce wardrobe. He had dressed her body. The only time he had ever touched her and her skin had been cold to the touch, and now he cannot help wondering if she is cold now, cold in the land of the dead.

She takes no light from the room, and Gabriel follows her to the dark hallway. She seems to need no guidance and the stairs feel longer and longer, stretching into eternity under his feet. When she finally pushes the door open, the air of the Vatican smells different, more pungent and thick. As he steps into the light, the hallway is filled with tapestries which he has never seen. They are vivid and new, and the figures appear as in motion. He walks after her, not letting his eyes linger on the strange looms. But her hand grasping his own still comes as a surprise, as she pulls him into a hidden passageway behind one of the tapestries.

"This is not real. There is no passage here."

She shakes her head in the dark. He cannot see her, but can still guess her reaction.

"Of course not. They closed this off during the sixteenth century."

Before he has time to reply, the blinding candle light of Saint Peter's cathedral hits his eyes. For a moment he is blinded, but as his eyes get used to the light the strange vividness continues. The frescoes seem to almost be alive. Their colour and intensity reaches out for him from the vaulted ceiling. Anna's hand is impatient in his own pulls him away from the splendour. She slides easily between the pews leading him out through the side door.

The spicy, thick air is like a furnace being opened at his face, and for a moment he loses sight of Anna in the strangely lit place. She stands by the side of the square, waiting and looking on the hundreds of jesters, salesmen, knights and commoners milling amongst one another. He has never Saint Peter's square like this, because this is not his time. The people's clothes are alien, and as a woman moves past him her eyes slide over him, but see nothing.

"They cannot see us, for we are not truly here."

Anna does not move her eyes away from the people as she speaks.

"Why?"

She blows some of the bangs away from her face with a frustrated breath.

"It is to do with the alignment of the universe of this particular day, and how all gods and religions feel that this time of year must be marked by celebration..."

Gabriel cuts her off, a bit too rudely perhaps.

"No, I meant why are we here?"

She smiles again in that infuriating way as she did the first time by his bed.

"The ghosts of Christmas past."

She leads him through the merry people, and the smells and lights assault his senses worse than ever. He steals a roll from a young man's stall, just to see his reaction, but the man sees nothing. The bun is warm and real in his hand, but as he turns back to look; the pile of rolls is again complete.

They arrive to a large house nestled in the side of the square. The front is gated, but the lock opens under Anna's fingers as if there is no lock at all. The foyer of the house is warm and cloaks and thick coats are hung by the door. Gabriel thinks he can even spy a tail of a dog from the hallway. He feels Anna tense by him when a shadow is cast against the hallway wall.

"Come now, Gabriel! We will be exceptionally late."

He has to look at to look at Anna by his side to make sure that it was not she who spoke. The timber and tone of her voice is exact, but her lips have remained firmly shut. As the other woman comes into view Gabriel has to hold on to the wall for support.

The long black cloak sweeps the ground in her wake and her long gloves have a fur lining. As she turns her face is caught up in the light of the torches. The contours of her cheeks and nose and forehead and eyes are the exact copy of the woman standing stiffly by his side. Her hands move to her middle and caress the noticeable bulge of her belly and for a moment Gabriel forgets to breathe. And then she shouts again.

"Gabriel!"

The voice is mighty and for some reason Gabriel knows that this particular tone means that she is exceptionally annoyed with him. Gabriel does not know who _he_ is, but they feel familiar. At first the sound is very faint, but Gabriel strains his hearing.

"Fine, fine. I am coming my love."

It is strange to hear his own voice echoed back at him. At first he did not truly recognise it, but there was something in the accents and intonation of the words that was too familiar. As the man comes into the hallway Gabriel has to step forward. He moves to the couple's side and watches the woman, who could be Anna, fuss with the man's jacket. She smoothes her hands over his shoulders and smiles a little. He just stands there letting her do what she pleases and the intimacy of the act makes Gabriel want to look away. But he cannot because it is like watching into warped mirror. He sees himself, as he would have this morning; just the clothes and his hair are different.

Anna moves to his side, her flesh radiating warmth to his chilled arms. They watch as the couple walks past and the hallway seems to suddenly grow wider as the others go to the door. _As we go_, Gabriel's mind corrects, _they are us_. The door silently closes and Anna slowly pivots around looking back. She seems to be in as much of a shock as Gabriel, and this gives him some sort comfort. It seems that even the dead do not know everything after all.

"We need to go with them."

She sounds resigned, the excitement gone from her voice now. Gabriel watches her in the low light and he can see jealousy peek through the closed off irises. But he does not want to question her, his own hurt too fresh; wounds dug open by the sight of her again.

They walk again through the crowd, which is beginning to dwindle into the night, and arrive again back at the cathedral. The entry way is filled with men, their brightly coloured sashes and medals creating a medley of colour. The woman, who he is still refusing to call Anna stands between them noble, and her black cloak a stark contrast to the peacock shine of the knights. Anna and Gabriel stand by the edges, alien and unwanted visitors to this splendour, and they walk behind the group as they enter the church. The candlelight is still bright, but it no longer hurts Gabriel's eyes at it did the first time. The priests stand along the pews and greet the men and gently bow to the sole woman among them.

She holds the hand of the man who looks like Gabriel and smiles to the bishops, hand protectively over her bump, but for sly the seconds in between the polite smiles Gabriel can see something ferocious and bloodthirsty peeking behind those brown eyes. He had not seen that in his Anna, but watching her closed off face now beside him make him think that, maybe he had not just pushed far or hard enough. Finally his Anna pulls on his hand again, as the fine gentry take their seats for the Christmas night mass.

"We do not need to be here anymore."

She pulls him out the door and now the square is empty, a mist covered desolate plane. They walk trough the silence, Anna's heels softly clicking against the stone. The streets seems to merge into one, until far in the distance Gabriel sees a light in the mist. He can feel Anna's pace speeding by his side.

The light is a single street light like which Gabriel has never seen before. Its bright glare penetrates the surrounding mist, but unlike fire its light is constant and unmoving. He can hear a distant sound beginning to emerge from the silence and then two pairs of lights cut through the fog. Anna pulls him aside as the lights whizz past, and then they are surrounded by light and noise and people and hard steely surfaces. Anna's nails have sunk into his flesh even through his coat and her breathing is erratic by his ear. Her voice shakes as she speaks.

"The ghosts of Christmas future. Welcome to the 21st century."

Another pair of light speed past and now Gabriel can see that they are attached what appears to be a very strange horseless carriage. They go past them in a continuous flow, their lights bright and hard on the eyes. Gabriel can feel the glass of the wall they are leaning on against his fingers and turns to look. The window opens to a strange tableau of mannequins and leather bags, as Anna moves restlessly by his side.

"I do not like this place. Too loud and too bright."

Gabriel wants to return that particular sentiment, but he is caught up in the uncertainty of her voice.

"Are you telling me that you did not know where you were bringing us?"

Anna shakes her head impatiently.

"I go to people; I does not concern me where they are, or what time. During this night time can stretch and be formed like putty. You just need to know where to press and pull."

"So none of this is real."

"No. Everything you see here is real. These people are all living exactly like this. It is us who are not real here, we are just visitors. Do you not see?"

Her head sharply turns as a woman rushes out from the shop they are standing by. Gabriel would consider her tight skirt indecent, if he had not see a woman walk past dressed in what he considered to be a very wide belt. Her left had holds something small and shell-like by her ear, and she is shouting, but Gabriel cannot make out the words in the incessant noise. Her hair is pulled into a tight ponytail, but the wild curls in the base of her neck are again familiar. Her face again is Anna's, and Gabriel can see his companion study the other woman carefully as she crosses the road. One of the carriages speeds around the corner and screeches to a halt mere inches from her knees. Anna has to grab Gabriel to stop him from running to her aid.

"Remember, we cannot touch or affect anything here. We are not really here."

So Gabriel holds himself still, but the woman hits the front of the carriage hard with her bag and swears loudly at the man sitting inside. He waves his hand and swears back; then the carriage moves around her and continues down the road.

As the woman walks into a small alleyway Anna sparks into action. She had been stilled by the sight of the new world laid out before them as much as Gabriel had, but now she is pulling him onto the road. It is not that the strange carriages stop driving, but they are just never on the road where Gabriel and Anna are. Easily they follow the other Anna; again through the small alleyways of central Rome. Gabriel realises that they are heading back towards the Vatican. He begins to wonder is the Vatican truly is the focal point of his existence, the only thing for him. Anna has promised to show him the past and the future, but it seems that he has never escaped the circle of influence of the church. Saint Peter's square opens before them filled with people and small sales huts. The woman who would be Anna easily pivots between them, but Gabriel can see that her steps are getting more and more furious. He has now beginning to recognise the angry tilt of her shoulders which is the same with all of the women who look like Anna. Suddenly the woman slips unnoticed, by the people milling about, into a small alcove next to the church. She opens the small door and slips into the dark hallway beyond.

The lights come on so suddenly that both Gabriel and Anna jump aside. Now they can see a long corridor with huge metal slabs infused within the stony wall structure. The woman walks to one of the metal contraptions and pulls the small card between two thick pieces of metal and a bling sound comes from the wall. Suddenly the huge metal wall preys apart, revealing a small box room in a similar shade. They all step inside and the box moves up. There are no windows, and if his body was not telling him differently, Gabriel would think them stationary. With another bling sound the door again opens, now to a very small and badly lit stony corridor.

The wooden door in the end of the hall is inconspicuous and quite small. Furiously she pushes the poor wood and starts to shout before the door is even properly open. The heavy hinges squealing under the strain.

"What was so fucking urgent that you had to drag me out of Gucci?!"

Her voice is not as accented as Anna's, still thick and headstrong, but as if she had only learned to speak English recently and the Eastern-European accent was just a camouflage for the real origin of her voice. Gabriel can hear someone laugh, and he is no longer so surprised to see a smiling image of himself leaning against a rough stonewall. There are again subtle differences. The cut of his hair and clothes is more form fitting, more tailored that Gabriel has ever had on his own body. But this stranger who is exactly like him seems to carry them with grace. He also seems more practiced in dealing with the woman's rage, and just smiles at her and heads back up the small flight of stairs. The woman humphs and follows him.

"This was so important."

The top of the tower opens into the cold night of Rome; thousands of lights are like a field on the darkened ground. A table for two is set on the corner, but what really draws Gabriel's attention is the pedestal of green, set on top of few metal pipes, on level with the parapet. It looks as if someone had cut out a perfectly square section of grass and laid it on the base. Next to it is a long tube like bag, supported by three spidery little legs.

"I thought we could try to learn some of the more interesting human ways."

Gabriel still has no idea what the bag is for, or the pedestal for that matter, but the woman laughs. She pulls a long metal spike with a thick bauble on the end from the tube, and inspects it by running her fingers over the bulbous metal. She lets the metal flip in her fingers so the bauble nearly touches the ground, and smiles knowingly.

"You stole the Cardinal's driver?!"

Easily the man pops open a champagne bottle, with his back to her. But from his angle Gabriel can see that he is smiling, pleased in her happiness. She lets the club like metal swing slowly in her hand, like a pendulum of a clock.

"He'd wish you a week in hell for that."

He shrugs, pouring the champagne.

"Well it would be a nice reprieve."

"Yes... it would, wouldn't it."

She chuckles, and surprisingly easily, climbs onto the podium with her tight skirt. The man hands her a small white ball and a small stick. She shoves the stick into the grass and balances the ball on top. Gabriel watches fascinated, as the woman seems to have no fear of standing on a podium 300 feet above ground in her spiky heels which seem to sink into the grass. But then again, Anna never did either. Gabriel risks a glance sideways, and he can again spy the same jealous look in Anna's eye. She watches the other woman, _the other Anna_, covetously as the she paces around the small ball on a stick. Finally she takes wide legged stance as far as her tight skirt allows and places the thick end of the club right next to the little ball, her face is shuttered, lips slightly parted. And then she pulls the club behind her head and hits, the ball shoots out somewhere into the night-time Rome.

"So this is what humans do for fun, hu?"

Her body is still completely still, both of her hands bent over her shoulder and the club nearly aligned with her back. The other Gabriel laughs and walks over to the small table and begins to lift the silver bowls from over the plates. She hops down from the pedestal and miraculously neither of her spidery thin heels break.

She walks up behind him, her hands going around his waist and up his chest. Gabriel can see his eyes close and his body slightly leaning towards her, and he remembers Anna's body against his own, not too long ago, in the silence of his own room.

"I need to leave here. Now."

It is a sudden impulse, a need and Anna grasps his retreating hand.

"There is other..."

But he rips himself free.

"No! Let me out! Now!"

The door no longer leads to the hallway, but back into the misty square. He just keeps running, but the more he runs the bigger the square gets until he can no longer see its edges.

"Gabriel!"

Her voice echoes behind him and around him.

"Gabriel wait. There is no way out from here."

Finally she reaches him, eyes wide and shocked. She says nothing and for that Gabriel grateful, he could not hear her voice right now and remember all the things he has seen tonight.

"I have seen images of myself. Different times, what does it matter?! You are not here now."

She grabs him by the arm, forcing him to face her.

"It is to show you that there is still hope. That somewhere, at some point in time in the vastness of the universe we made it work. We made it right. Is that not enough?"

"No!"

And now he is crying, the hot and bitter tears that refused to come by her funeral pyre and stayed away all throughout his mourning. She watches him helplessly, hands reaching out for him but Gabriel pull out of her grasp.

"You cannot come here and show me these things and expect me to be happy, to accept my fate and my life without you."

"But I am not gone!"

Her voice is desperate and her hands hard as she pulls on the lapels of his jacket, nails sinking into his shoulder.

"I live in you, in your memories."

"But I want you to live here."

The anger in him deflates and he cannot help himself but hold her, pull her little body against his own and revel in the feel of her flesh under his hands. She does not fight his embrace, but hangs onto his shoulder like s drowning victim. Then she speaks voice soft and barely audible.

"Do you not think that I do not feel anger that they are where I wish to be? I feel it unfair that she is allowed to carry your child and see you and feel you and lie beside you at night when I never was."

Roughly Gabriel pulls her head away from his chest and kisses her. Her lips are warm now, not frozen and stiff as they had been in Castle Dracula. That has been a kiss of goodbye, but he had not known it then. He wants this to be a kiss of hello, but bitterly knows that for them there can never be but that bitter end in the frozen castle. He will not get second changes with her. The people he has seen tonight are not him, are not here and they will never share his pain of loosing her.

Slowly her lips travel over his face, his neck and she whispers her lips nearly touching his skin.

"There is yet one thing I have not showed you."

"The ghost of Christmas present."

He can almost now see her thoughts in his head, and he wonders if this is a kind of magic as well. She moves her hand against his chest and he feels sharp edges pressing into his skin. In her hand is a small parcel, not much larger than a man's fist. But inside the parcel is empty; he pushes his hand in through the wrapping, just to make sure and light begins to stream around them. It blinds everything and for a moment Gabriel thinks he has died and feels grateful for it.

When he sees again the landscape has changed. The sombre shadows of Saint Peter's church are gone, and there are people running and dancing down the street. He feels his neck and the shirt collar is uncomfortable and tight against his throat, and Gabriel fears that he is actually wearing a vest under his suit jacket and coat. Anna looks ravishing. Her longs arms covered in fine silk cloves, and the hem of her fine gown brushing the dusty cobbles.

"Where the hell are we?"

"The only place an unmarried couple can have a good time in 1891"

She looks around at the people and lights, and smiles up at him. For the first time he cannot see the edged jealousy or sorrow.

"Why?"

"This is his gift for you."

"Whose?"

Gently her hand cradles his face and again she whispers her lips nearly touching his own.

"I think you know. He wanted you to understand, that not even him can control everything, but he does try."

Gabriel smiles up to the sky, and indeed the stars are unusually bright this night. Anna grasps his hand firmly and pulls him towards the tower visible against the dark sky; a tall spike of led glimmering in the night. Her hand is warm and real in his own.

When Gabriel wakes up, he is again in his own small bed, in the bowers of the Vatican complex. The room is again empty and his clothes hang in their rightful places, as if he had not taken them out last night. Slowly he rises from his bead and looks around his desolate room. There are no windows, so the only source of light is an oil lamp that hangs by the ceiling. He never turn is off, so the room in constantly bathed in the low yellowy light.

But something has changed. On his chair something black and shiny catches the yellow light and sparkles. The gloves are fine silk and he can remember as she grasped the railing in the top of the Eiffel tower and yelled out to the Paris night. There is still a small hole on the edge of the left thumb where a nail in the railing had caught her hand. Gently he folds the gloves and places them in the bottom of his trunk; inside the scarf he had worn in Transylvania, and which he had ever worn again.

* * *

It is clear and bright Christmas day, and Saint Peter's square is filled with light, but the people are scarce today. They all in their homes celebrating Christmas with their families. Anna walks restlessly along the edge of the cathedral, her steps again measured and patient, but inside she is restless. Her emotions wallowing and changing like the restless sea. No one can see her anymore, her time and magic is nearly running out but she wants to see him once more before she goes.

She had thought that his journey would be for his healing alone. She had not inspected her own selfish reasons for coming to him and showing him the things she had only distantly heard about. She had not prepared for the gripping and raw jealousy at the sight of herself pregnant and happy.

She sees Carl fist, jubilant and excitable as always. He still speaks extremely fast, his hands aiding him when at a loss for words. Now he is describing the benefits of a good meal and some Christmas cake. Behind him follows Gabriel, he is not dressed in his usual clothes, but in a garb of a regular man. It is clear that he has indeed taken up Carl's invitation of a hearty meal out in the town. Anna has to smile, even though sorrow still grips her at the thought that she cannot join them, and part of her hopes that even after the night before, Gabriel will still be unable to let her go. She wants to keep coming back to these hallways and shut off rooms with him. It is her place after all. She watches as the two men disappear into the quietened city and slowly disappears into the sunlight caressing the cathedral walls.

The End


End file.
